The present invention relates to a method for cylindrical surface grinding of workpieces having a workpiece diameter (d.sub.w) wherein a grinding wheel rotating at a circumferential speed (v.sub.s) engages a workpiece rotating in the opposite direction at a circumferential speed (v.sub.w), while the grinding wheel and the workpiece are fed relative to each other at a feeding speed (v.sub.fa) along directions extending parallel to the axis of the workpiece, the grinding wheel rotating about an axis extending at an angle relative to the axis of the workpiece and the grinding wheel comprising first and second conical circumferential portions so that a first surface of the first circumferential portion engages a helicoidal material removal surface, while a second surface of the second circumferential portion engages an axial circumferential surface of the workpiece.
Methods of the type described before have been generally known and are used as a rule for an operation known as "plunge-cut grinding". In conventional plunge-cut grinding, relatively low circumferential speeds are selected for the grinding wheel and the workpiece, for example circumferential speeds in the range of 40 m/s.
It has been further known to use the method described before for peel grinding, which means that the outer circumference of the workpiece is ground from a raw dimension to a desired dimension, at relatively high material removal rates, by feeding the workpiece in the axial direction. The speed of the axial feed is extraordinarily low in this case, i.e. in the range of a few mm/min.
On the other hand, a high-speed grinding method has been known where a grinding wheel of relatively small thickness (for example 8 mm) is used and inclined in such a manner that one end face engages a radical shoulder face of the workpiece between the raw dimension and the final dimension, while its circumferential surface is inclined relative to the finished axial circumferential surface of the workpiece at a relief angle.
Although relatively high material removal rates can be achieved with the aid of these known high-speed grinding methods, the known method is connected with the drawback that due to the practically point-shaped contact between the grinding wheel and the foot of the radial end face of the workpiece at the transition to the finished circumferential surface, a spirally grooved surface of the workpiece is obtained which is unacceptable for many applications.